Straight outta Brooklyn

Drop by for a bagel after the game

Bagels may not seem to belong in the Los Angeles all-star lineup
of baseball, Dodger Dogs, and Chavez Ravine. But for many fans, the
Brooklyn Bagel Bakery is a longtime part of their game-day
ritual.

The big, anonymous building on an equally anonymous stretch of
Beverly Boulevard west of downtown was on my surface-street return
from Dodger Stadium. I would drop in for a dozen, walking past a
wall of Dodgers photos from Brooklyn days and into the factorylike
space that dwarfed a spartan counter. There the bagel bins await.
You won't find a smorgasbord of shmears, soy infusions, blond
woods, or any of the accoutrements that boutique bagel joints have
deemed essential. Here it's the quintessential essentials: a
boiled― not steamed―bagel with a defined crust; onion
bagels with shreds of real onions and freckled with poppy
seeds.

Brooklyn Bagel has been around 52 years and is owned by Richard
Friedman, son of its founder. Friedman is to the bagel born. His
dad spent his entire career in the business, and his grandfather
was a founder of New York's bagel bakers union. Such a pedigree. So
these have become the bagel of choice for top local delis, an upper
crust including Art's, Langer's, and Nate 'n Al's. And for good
reason. Unlike the Dodgers, Brooklyn Bagel never went Hollywood.
Brooklyn Bagel Bakery (7 a.m.-11 p.m. daily; 2217 W. Beverly Blvd.,
Los Angeles; 213/ 413-4114.) ―Matthew Jaffe